


seconds

by letterfromathief



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Exes, F/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterfromathief/pseuds/letterfromathief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always a dark room and a bad idea when you're sleeping with your ex - only, they have <i>no</i> idea about the way Killian presses his chin to Emma's shoulder and sighs, tired and happy into her skin, or how Emma kisses him hello when he walks through her door - because they haven't told their friends, easier to let them have their own ideas about what Emma and Killian have than it is to explain, of course.</p>
<p>Of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seconds

“Do I get a goodbye kiss?”

Emma lifts her head up from where she’s looking at the wrinkled bottom of her skirt, and she arcs back around to face him again.

“No,” she says.

Slowly, she steps towards him. The dark of the room shadows his face, but doesn’t shadow his smile when she tugs at his hands, placing them on her hips, urging him to pull her closer.

Killian doesn’t hesitate, drawing the space between them to a close.

“What’s this then?”

His smile is a teasing touch against her when she nudges him with her nose, slanting her mouth over his.

“It’s a kiss,” Emma says.

It’s slow and languid and time doesn’t still, moves on just as fast as ever, but Emma doesn’t count its seconds. There are past years that they didn’t spend together, and future days they won’t see each other but right here, she has him.

She has him.

“Go on before they start banging on the door,” Killian says against her lips and that’s _her_ thing, to be so desperate for the taste of him that she keeps her mouth on his even when she’s trying to say goodbye, and she’d be upset at him for stealing it if she weren’t so content with the hours she just spent stealing away with him.

Emma nods, her forehead brushing his.

“Goodbye,” she says, and kisses him again only to pull back and away to Killian’s delighted grin.

“Not a goodbye kiss?” he asks.

“Not a goodbye,” she replies.

She runs her fingers through her hair, straightens her dress as best she can in the dark but she still descends the stairs to Mulan’s pitying look, Ruby’s understanding one and Merida’s drunken huff.

Merida takes her by the arm, a heavy pinch to the motion that leaves Emma wincing, and says, “Of course we couldn’t find you! Of course you were with _him_.”

There’s no use in arguing the matter because even drunk Merida still has the sense of self to hate everything about Killian Jones. Full name, all caps-locked hatred, multiple exclamation points added for good measure.

(It’s just what friends do, hate your ex for you even when you don’t hate them, not at all.)

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” Merida demands, loud enough that eyes draw to them.

Emma rolls hers.

Mulan’s even temper helps a bit, even though she comments, “A fair question.”

“It’s fine,” Emma says.

“It’s not,” Merida contests. “It isn’t. It’s not. You deserve much better, Emma.”

She keeps up this line of conversation even as Emma, Ruby, and Mulan (struggle to) herd her towards the front porch. Ruby struggles a little more than the rest of them, a little drunker than the Emma and Mulan, but not nearly as intoxicated as Merida, who keeps railing against Killian Jones long into their drive until she throws up her hands, nearly whacking Emma in the face and says, “I’m done with ya.”

Ruby presses herself against Emma’s other side and says, quietly enough, “The best sex in the world can’t make up for a broken heart, Emma.”

“My heart isn’t broken, Ruby,” Emma says.

“Yeah, yeah it is,” Ruby says.

Emma could argue the point more, but what would be the use because maybe it is a little broken, like jagged whispers of “I love you” panted into her skin. Maybe she’s left pieces of it behind in that bedroom, but if she has- if she did, she left Killian behind, too, and he’ll be there to pick them up, brush off the dust of Ruby’s words and the dirt of Merida’s and put them back good as new the next time his hands cup her face, and he draws the rough pad of his thumb across her cheek, chasing life, bright and pink and warm into her skin.

-

Killian’s smoothing out the sheets on Will’s bed when the owner himself settles in the doorway to watch him, slouching drunkenly.

“Did you seriously change the sheets on my bed?”

Killian motions towards said bed with a scoffed, “I have no idea what diseases have been accumulating on your old ones. I wasn’t keen on catching them.”

“So you changed them. Twice. Mate, you’re a mess,” Will says all in a slur.

Killian studies him minutely before he says, “Who spilled beer on you this time?”

“Ana, actually, and it was red wine. See the stain?”

He puffs up his chest proudly, so Killian says, “I do, now that you mention it.”

Will extricates himself from the doorway and steps forward carefully, the worst sneak-thief in the world, floorboards creaking beneath his every step now that it’s quiet enough for them to hear _it_ and the rustle of the wind through the open window.

“Thanks for airing it out,” Will says.

“Didn’t do it for you,” Killian says.

“Emma get hot easily?”

Killian freezes up, hand curling slightly, and he says, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that, or I’m going to take a swing at you. It’s your choice.”

Will lifts his hands in the barest effort at surrender and says, “You really are a mess. Freshmen year is supposed to stay in the past, you know.”

“Like yours?”

Killian lifts a brow in challenge, leaves his expression teasing enough that Will only smiles as he plops down, stretching out across his new sheets and wrinkling them beyond repair. 

“Ana is high school,” Will explains, sighing softly.

“You never forget your first,” Killian murmurs.

“But you try,” Will murmurs.

Killian says nothing to that, not sure what he would say to his trying to forget Milah’s smile on weeklong benders, soaked in drink and still aching at the loss.

“What do they say about seconds again?” Will asks.

They say things like:

_T_ here was a table between them, but he didn’t need to push it aside to close the gap, just the words, “ _I never thought I’d be capable of letting go of my first love, that is, until I met you,_ ” and she was staring at him with those eyes that saw right through him from the very start - and saw through the way he reached for her with one hand, and for his flask with the other...

And she said, “ _Of course I care,_ ” and he just knew what it meant, that she was there with him because she cared, of course she did, but it made her shiver, made her reach for the swan pendant on her neck, her gaze pained.

They say things like:

_S_ he didn’t even leave a note and it wasn’t like he was surprised because she _ran_ and that’s what people who run do, they disappear in the middle of the night and every time you see them across campus they walk right past, pretending they don’t see you at all, that it doesn’t hurt them the way it’s hurting you because if you keep moving the pain never has time to catch.

_A_ nd he said nothing because it was so much easier to fight himself than it was to fight for her, letting his low measure of worth outweigh his longing in the drinks snuck so many times in class that when they were poured down his throat within full view of everyone, no one even blinked an eye.

They say things like:

_S_ he said, “ _Before...it was real before, too. I loved you. I loved you. I love you,_ ” and waited with quiet breaths, for him to say anything, _“I know”_ on the tip of his tongue, but _“I loved you, too, and as you know, I love_ -” falling from his lips and caught in her delighted kiss.

What they really say is _this_ :

“ _Should we tell them?_ ” and then they both decide, no, this is easier, no explanations of what, when, why, how, _why_ , nothing to say except “I love you,” when you mean it and she means it when she slips her hand into his and leads him up the stairs and he means it when he splays his hand across her back just to hear the uptick in her breathing and they both mean it when they part, no sorrow in it just a secret smile reflected between them -

“I don’t know what they say,” Killian answers with a shrug.

“No, you’re too busy trying to snog her damn face off and -”

Will turns over and smothers his own face with the pillow, so Killian doesn’t have to do it himself.

-

It’s weekly “Make Emma Stop Fucking Her Ex” intervention day, and it’s too late to avoid it as she’s already kicked off her boots, tucked her feet beneath her on the couch, and her hot cocoa is just too hot to drown down. So, Emma endures the way Mary Margaret keeps clearing her throat for as long as possible before she says, “Out with it, please.”

“You’re too old to be doing this, Emma.”

Emma raises two disbelieving brows because one, she’s 25, not 90, and two, _that’s_ a new one. “So, now it’s an age issue? Where was this issue when we all decided to get drunk at a junior party last night and some of us couldn’t even drive themselves home?”

Merida protests this with a toss of her wild mane and a snarled curse that Emma has long since given up understanding while Ruby glares at her, one black nail raised in warning, either of imminent murder or of imminent breakfast regurgitation should their voices raise too loud and her obvious hangover take a turn for the worse.

Emma doesn’t have any reason to shout, though, so Ruby has no reason to worry. _This_ doesn’t bother her. She can deal with her friends and their wanting to protect her from her past. What she wouldn’t be able to deal with is them trying to interfere with her future.

That would be something to shout over. This, this is merely an annoyance worthy of cursing under her breath which she does when Mary Margaret says, “You’re being defensive, and it makes sense. You just don’t want to get hurt.”

Emma thinks of Killian’s fingers at her shoulders, gently massaging the week’s built up pain away, and yeah, they might be onto something there.

“Is that really so bad?” Emma asks.

“It’s not bad to protect yourself, Emma, but using him as this buffer is. He’s comfort, we understand, but comfort is no replacement for happiness. Being with him may keep out pain, but it also may keep out love.”

She’s right, and she’s wrong, but Emma doesn’t have the words to explain how Killian found her staring out into the end of nowhere on that park bench months after Neal left and offered her a swig of his flask, and how his fingers were cold when they first brushed away a hair on her cheek but they were warmer when she fought him for the last sip, making her laugh for the first time in days, and making her cry for the first time in months, and how her world turned on its axis the day she met him and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t spin right off until he folded his phone number between her fingers and said, “ _Call me_ ,” more longing in the simple demand than any request.

“Yeah, well.” She turns to Mulan, clearing her throat. “How goes the classes at the gym?”

Mulan shakes her head when Ruby makes a noise of protest and smiles at Emma instead. “My students are a handful.”

Emma exhales, a relieved sigh and says, “Tell me all about it.”

-

It’s only with a careful swing and grab of Belle’s stumbling form that prevents her from nearly toppling several bookshelves. Books cascade down around them, but neither end up concussed which Killian counts as a good thing.

“Killian, hello,” Belle says, fanning away the heat from her face. She runs her hands over the disheveled lines of her skirt and says, “Sorry about nearly killing you.”

She looks over the books with a sigh, but it’s not until she looks back at Killian that her face falls.

“I won’t press charges, if you’re concerned,” Killian says to the expression.

“I’m not concerned about that. I’m worried about you. And Emma.”

He still counts the lack of injury as a good thing, but while he has that to be thankful for, he doesn’t feel like he’s to leave this encounter unscathed with Belle looking at him like she’s ready to fight and Killian doesn’t have the strength in him to put up arms.

All he can say is, “You are,” no question to the words and hope that she takes the hint.

Belle takes it, yes, but she turns it right back on him, and says, “I am. Ruby told me that you two are still…”

Ruby.

Of course.

Because Belle met Ruby after a bad breakup. Ruby fell for Belle when she was still dealing with the loss of her boyfriend. Things didn’t work out between them.

And Emma met Killian after a bad breakup. Killian fell for Emma while he was still dealing with the loss of his girlfriend. Things didn’t work out between them.

And Belle has Jefferson, an eccentric to match her eccentricities toe for toe, and Ruby has Mulan and Belle sees patterns, in the hats that Jefferson creates for her and Grace, in the books spread out on the bookshop floor, and in the lines of their hearts.

And Killian and Emma are taking that pattern far off course.

The lines of his heart have no rhyme or reason to the way they fall though. All they have is how they all trace the same path to meet Emma’s own in a tangle of shared heartbeats, shared breaths from mouths swollen with kisses and eager for more.

And it’s a tangle that he doesn’t mind hiding away from everyone else, but Belle sees patterns, and Belle _likes_ puzzles, and he can’t so much as hide it as he has to smile through the creeping sensation that he isn’t hiding anything at all.

“Emma and I are fine,” Killian says and hopes that Belle won’t see the lie hidden behind that truth.

Belle shakes her head, and Killian smiles a little wider when she waves him towards the books on the floor, following in her steps and bending to grab at the first of the pile of books.

As they’re clearing the architecture texts from the floor, Belle says, “You could be more than fine.”

Killian smiles, because he is. But to tell her that would mean to solve the puzzle and Belle _loves_ puzzles; best to leave her with one unsolved.

-

“How was your day, love?”

His voice rumbles over the line, and he’s exhausted, but she doesn’t feel even the tiniest bit sorry for keeping him up because he called her. He woke her from her sleep.

And then, he probably doesn’t feel sorry either because she was waiting for just that.

“It was good. Mulan kicked my ass in our kickboxing class, and my pride’s still clinging to the gym floor. Other than that, I got another bond lined up for the weekend. Hopefully I won’t have to chase his sorry butt across city lines this time.”

“I’ll make the drive with you,” Killian says.

“You can’t. You’re not licensed, and what would Liam say?”

“He doesn’t have much say in what I do,” Killian grumbles. He huffs into the line, more exhaustion than concession as he says, “But you’re right, Liam would throw a fit and then I’d have even less time to spend with you as he finds more work for me to do at the yard.”

“Exactly,” Emma says.

“So you’ll take Ruby then?”

“This is an ‘If’ situation, you know,” Emma says. “A hopefully ‘not happening’ situation.”

“But if it does?”

“I’ll take Ruby.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“If I can’t be there, you could use the company of another adoring fan.”

“She adores me just a bit less right now. She’s upset about the party. She thinks it’s self-sabotage that we keep...yeah. I think Merida’s been getting to her.”

Killian laughs slightly, and says, “She’ll get over it and transfer that hate to someone more deserving.”

“You don’t _deserve_ to be hated,” Emma argues.

“Yeah, I do. I burned your eggs the other morning.”

“True,” Emma agrees, giggling at his sigh.

She kind of wishes she had a cord on her phone, so she could wind it around her fingers while he breathes into the line and curb the twitching in her hands just enough that she stops thinking about the tuft of hair at the top that he lets her wind her fingers through when he’s laid out across her lap while they catch up on all the old TV they missed as kids.

“What are you thinking about?”

Emma settles into her pillows because this line of conversation always goes on long - she thinks about a lot when she’s on the phone with him this late at night, his hair, his hands, the soothing lilt of his voice that always has her blinking tiredly and cursing her early class because she can’t force herself awake past this point, so she sighs halfway into his loving rant about baroque music and says, “I don’t understand a word of this.”

“I was merely attempting to put you to sleep, and it seems I was successful,” he murmurs.

They both know he’s lying, that he only just now recognized the tune of her words and heard the sleepy note in her voice and that he was serious about telling her about Vivaldi and those other guys whose names slip past her tired mind.

She sighs happily and says, “I love you.”

She doesn’t let the phone slip out of her hands until he murmurs, “And I you. Sleep well, darling,” and then she lets it fall to the comforting blinking of “Call Ended: 1 hour and 33 minutes.”

It’s longer than they had last week.

-

She doesn’t often come to the Engineering building, but some of Mary Margaret’s education classes are scheduled here, and sometimes Emma gets bored waiting for her at the law library, so she ends up here, peeking inside Mary Margaret’s room to see her already putting her teaching skills to use, lecturing the class from her front row seat.

Emma smiles and leans back down and away from the door, stepping out into the hall and into -

Killian’s path.

He stops right before her and maybe there’s about inches of space between their noses, they’re toe to toe and it’s a charged moment, an almost moment where if she stepped into him, she knows he’d step into her, a dance that they’d both be all too happy to play their roles in, Killian’s hand circling her waist, her nose caressing his as she leans up and he leans down and they meet somewhere in between -

But Liam’s right there, huffing behind Killian and he never liked Emma anyway, and Mary Margaret’s just about done with her class and she’ll be the first out the door, ready to race with Emma to their next one.

So, she takes that step back, and it’s a dance they’re all too happy to play, the one where Emma’s jerking away and pretending to be scathed by his presence instead of basking in the way his eyes follow her, and he grunts slightly, like she’s hurt him physically when she can see the slight upward tilt that follows, the sparkle in his eyes just before she turns away.

“Alright there, Swan?”

She grunts in response.

“Killian, don’t be immature. Be done with this and let’s move on,” Liam says.

Only Killian steps forward and brushes back a hair from her forehead, pressing it behind her ear with a lingering touch to the curve of her earlobe and the little diamond stars.

“Are you done?” Emma asks.

“With you?”

“Killian,” Liam stresses, and then pushes past, shoulders stiff with annoyance and anxiety.

“With me?” Emma asks on a whisper, even though holding him back is only going to make this worse.

“With you, never,” Killian says.

Mary Margaret’s, as predicted, the first person out the door, only moments after Killian disappears after his brother, and she grabs Emma’s hand and says, “You don’t have to come here _every_ Tuesday.”

“I don’t,” Emma says.

Because sometimes Emma isn’t bored waiting for Mary Margaret by the law library because sometimes she’s at the children’s library, feet propped up on the little chair while Killian rubs his knee against her thigh and tries and fails to get his projects done while Emma’s there to share in his space.

-

He’s spent an undue amount of time in front of the stove this evening, but it can’t be helped. Thursday dinners are always this way, Liam, Ursula, Belle, Jefferson, Grace and Tink all set around his small table, all waiting for Liam to serve the drinks and Killian to serve up something wonderful, although tonight the only thing he seems to be serving up is a wonderful mess.

The meal comes out fine, excellent even, but it’s his head that’s screwed on the wrong way because it’s been niggling at his mind, Belle’s words, and a piece of perfection has slid out of place and he doesn’t know how to put it back, or even where to find it amid the mess of pretending for this friend and the assumption that “it’s just sex” for that one, and angry glares at the dining hall before his 7AM class, and awkward smiles as he crosses Emma’s kinder friends in the hall.

Dinner speeds by in the way that it does before it comes to a screeching halt when Liam starts his Thursday toast with, “Setting aside my dear little brother’s follies in love -”

“Follies?”

Liam notes Killian’s question with a nod, but keeps going anyway, “This has been a spectacular year so far.”

“What did you mean by follies?” Killian asks because he’s never quite known how to just give up on something, it’s always been easier to pick a battle, he’s had so many, and this - for certain, he feels that this is one worth fighting.

“Emma,” Liam says matter-of-factly.

And it’s a fact that the first time around, it was all but doomed to fail, from the way he invited Emma out for more and more drinks, never bothering to stop himself from drinking the lot, or the way she shut him out when things got hard, exams, feelings, everything in between, how they both nursed their pain with each other’s. But it’s indisputable that it was never a _folly_ , Emma was never a mistake and he’ll be damned -

“You’re wrong,” Killian snaps.

“Enlighten me, then,” Liam snaps back, not as loud, but he crosses his arms like he has the high ground, and it would’ve been better if he’d shouted.

At least then Killian wouldn’t be reminded of the bitter air between them, of _older, wiser - you should’ve listened, Killian, with Milah, and now Emma, you’re drinking yourself to death and I won’t stand by and let you -_

“If I wanted to fuck up my own life messing around with someone who doesn’t love me that would be on me, not you. I am not your burden to carry, Liam, and you’re not going to whip me into shape by taking a jab at her every chance you get.”

“Someone who doesn’t…? Emma loves you?” Belle interjects, because Belle loves puzzles and Killian’s just given her the missing piece, it seems, her face lighting up with the solution.

It cools Killian’s anger enough that when Liam opens his mouth again, Killian allows him to say, “I wasn’t trying to whip you into shape. I just want what’s best for you.”

“Then trust in me to know what that is for once.”

Liam sighs, “I do.”

Killian nods at his brother and turns back to the table, announcing, “Let the meal recommence then, and next week I expect one of you will provide the entertainment? It’s not every day that we can have a brotherly spat for your viewing pleasure.”

Ursula kicks him under the table and says, “I’m not singing for dinner, so don’t even look at me.”

Killian grins, and when his eyes meet Belle’s, he winks at her, too. One puzzle solved, and now it’s time for another, he presumes, as she looks to Jefferson and says, “Where’s Grace?”

“Probably off in Liam’s closet again, trying to fit into his navy whites.”

Liam pushes back out of his chair so fast that the table bumps and scrapes against the floor, and Killian’s left laughing and wondering why this is supposed to be so much harder.

Squeezing her in at the table wouldn’t be hard at all.

-

“You know you have that date with Walsh on Friday.”

Emma grunts her response, and then moans it when Mary Margaret, instead of taking her keys and heading out the door, pulls out the chair instead and seats herself across from Emma at the table, staring at her with hawk-eyes.

She feels studied, and it’s too early in the morning for that.

“Do you think it’ll work out this time? Give me your honest answer, Emma.”

Mary Margaret doesn’t look like she wants honesty, but Emma’s just that edge of tired to give it.

“No, I don’t.”

Her friend’s lips purse together and she looks thoughtful instead of angry, a reaction that Emma’s a bit surprised by given her aggressive hunt for Emma’s next true love.

“You’re not over him, and I know he’s still in love with you.”

Mary Margaret doesn’t have to spell it out for her for Emma to _get_ it, but her wrinkling brow is difficult to parse as is her quiet, “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Emma directs.

Mary Margaret shrugs likes she’s giving up and says, “Maybe you could ask Killian out? Just for coffee or something lighter...Tea, maybe? Someplace where it’s not just you, him, dark corner and a bad idea?”

“Wow,” Emma says, honestly impressed by Mary Margaret managing to say that with a straight face. She pauses before she asks, “Are you pushing me back towards ‘the undeserving jerk?’”

(Her words, not Emma’s.)

Mary Margaret places her hands atop Emma’s, and Emma blinks down at them in surprise.

“I want you to be happy.”

“Maybe I am happy,” Emma says, still staring at Mary Margaret’s hands.

“It’s funny because you seem so, too. But then you make those eyes at him and I think you’re just really good at faking it. You yearn for him.”

Emma jerks up, denying, “I don’t yearn.”

Because yearning would involve her aching for his touch when she has it when she wants it, his door is always open on Sunday nights and Wednesday mornings and his arms are too, just for her, and she’d only yearn if she couldn’t kiss him whenever she liked and she can if he’s free, if Liam’s not around, if Emma can make an escape from Mary Margaret’s good intentions and Ruby’s distractions, if -

_If._

“Oh,” Emma says.

She breathes out, a little unsteady in her words, “If I did yearn, what would you say to that?”

Mary Margaret squeezes her hand and says, “I’d say that maybe you’re not...wrong to?”

_Not wrong_.

But she is.

She’s been wrong all along.

-

Emma’s pacing his living room floor when he walks through the door, and he suspects that she’s been doing it for hours given the takeout still lying unopened on the table and the undrawn shades, letting in the faintest of light from the fading sun.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

Her gaze shoots to him and she steps forward warily.

“That’s a phone question,” Emma says, words accusing.

“Hmm?”

“That’s a question for when we don’t see each other.”

There’s a note to her voice he hasn’t heard since they decided that _this_ is what they should have, phone conversations instead of evenings spent in each other’s bed, quickies at parties and languid sex only on nights when they can get away from prying eyes.

Perhaps those eyes are no longer so prying.

“ _Are_ we seeing each other?” Killian asks, searching her face.

Her mouth tilts up in a half smile. “Well?” She steps up to him and says, “Better question: can we? Can we see each other?”

He sighs, soft and low, a feeling he’s been holding close to him for so long that he’s almost surprised that it doesn’t feel stranger setting it free, allowing himself to want moments spent with her where -

“Where would you like to see each other?” he asks.

“Everywhere, all the time,” Emma says. She laughs softly. “According to Mary Margaret, I yearn.”

She steps into his space then and Killian smiles, says, “Do you?”

“According to me?” she replies.

He raises a brow.

“Definitely,” she confirms.

Maybe it would feel stranger to have this in an instant if the question didn’t come so easily to his lips: “So, shall I hold a seat for you at Thursday dinner?”

Perhaps it would be strange if Emma’s reply didn’t come so readily: “I thought you always did.”

Perhaps it would be strange if he wanted this and she didn’t want it to, but she wants it, she _yearns_ , and when he presses his mouth to hers, hungry and desperate, she responds in kind.

-

Will slings an arm around his shoulder, and Killian knows he’s watching Ana move around the room by the way his head lolls against him, far too comfortable to be anything but in the most loving of moods.

“I think I’ve got the answer,” Will says.

“To which mystery? You have so many,” Killian drawls.

Will pats him on the cheek and says, “It isn’t a mystery, right, what they say about second loves. It only matter who’s saying what. And the only who that matters is her.”

Will nods at Ana as she looks up and smiles at them from across the room, and Killian’s lost for what to say to that besides -

He slinks from underneath Will’s arm and walks to the other room, to find Emma leaning up against the window, where he left her before, gazing out onto the water. Drawing up behind her, Killian wraps his arms around her, and leans down to kiss the top of her head.

“I love you,” he murmurs quietly.

She settles back against him, and her laughter is a sweet trill.

“I love you, too,” she says and Will’s right (for once), the only thing that matters is her.


End file.
